Wireless communications, including Wi-Fi networks, employ a range of connectivity technologies. Examples of these technologies include wireless local area networks based on the IEEE 802.11 standards. Wi-Fi enabled devices (nodes) may connect to the Internet when within range of a connected wireless network. In recent years, Wi-Fi physical layer data rates have increased from 1 megabits per second (Mbps) in the original 802.11 standard to 1 gigabits per second (Gbps) in the 802.11 ac standard. However, while physical layer data rates have increased, user level throughputs have not achieved a commensurate increase. One reason that throughputs have not similarly increased is due to channel access overhead. For example, while the transmission time for a 1,500 byte payload is only 20 microseconds (μs) at 600 Mbps, the average channel access overhead may exceed 100 μs, which is over 500% of the packet transmission time.